Monday, March 23, 2015

Volcabulary word of the day...

cere
seer
noun
ornithology
  1. a fleshy, membranous covering of the base of the upper mandible of a bird, especially a bird of prey or a parrot, through which the nostrils open.

Origin, Medieval Latin cēra literally, wax
The cere of this 1st year adult Red-tailed Hawk is a bit raw.

From time to time you'll see birds with bloodied ceres. This happens because despite how "soft" we attempt to make the linings of our traps the very act of the bird thrashing around makes them susceptible injuring their ceres. Some species like Cooper's Hawks are particularly agitated when in a trap and thrash around quite a bit, which is why we like to get them out of the traps as soon as possible and placed in a transport kennel where a.) they're less likely injure themselves, and b.) they can calm down a bit. Angry birds are only fun in the game!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

House of sparrows

m. House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
House Sparrows I've decided, are the coyotes, of our terminal and concourse at the airport -- in that they are invasive as all get out, darn near impossible to abate, and almost equally as difficult to trap. Difficult but not impossible. And just like the coyote they oddly enough have just as many supporters as they have people who loath them, which I hear is particularly heated amongst those in the bluebirding community. (As noted here by the North American Bluebird Society, Inc.) So as with any wildlife management endeavor this means that efforts are conducted with a degree of discretion.
Kind of a cute lil' bugger isn't he though... what can I say I once owned Spice and African Silverbill Finches. Man now I miss those noisy little guys. =( It's funny, to me anyways, because people will claim, "I'm a cat person" or "I'm a dog person" but I just pretty much like all of them. I'm an animal person how's that?

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Vocabulary word for the day...

nic·ti·tat·ing mem·brane
ˌniktətādiNG ˈmembrān/
noun
ZOOLOGY
  1. a whitish or translucent membrane that forms an inner eyelid in birds, reptiles, and some mammals. It can be drawn across the eye to protect it from dust and keep it moist

This juvenile Red-tailed Hawk is using her nictitating membrane to protect her left eye. 
It's a zombie hawk winking! No! 
Up until today I knew that birds had this, but I had no idea that it's called a nictitating membrane. Cats and sharks also have this membrane. A little quick research turned up that most birds can still see through the membrane and that vultures use theirs in the same fashion as sharks do, that is to protect the eye when plunge their heads into a carcass.


Friday, March 13, 2015

Birds just wanna stay cool


Adult European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Actually I've been asked this quite a few times while showing raptors around the airport, "Why is it's mouth open?" Birds do not have that awesome cooling mechanism that you and I have -- they don't sweat. Much like your dog at home they pant which allows saliva in their mouth and on their tongues to evaporate. It's not quite as effective as our sweating due to the decreased surface area available for evaporation but it's better than nothing. Birds will of course take advantage of any available water to bath in and cool down. They may also do so by soaring to where air is cooler, after all referring to the dry adiabatic lapse rate from back in ground school days we know that air with less than 100% relative humidity (and barring inversion) lapses at a rate of 5.4°F/1,000' or -14.7777778°C/ 304.8m -- so yeah it's [typically] cooler the higher you go. Birds may also ruffle their feathers allowing the both a breeze to get under their feathers and the built up heat from their body to escape. There's even a hypothesis that the size of a bird's beak may be design of thermoregulation.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Holy gopher gulping herons Batman

When people think of the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) they picture a long legged shore bird wading through a marsh picking off frogs or gracefully gliding low over an estuary looking for the perfect fishing spot. Well, that's all true and fine but herons who visit the airport are here for something other than more surf -- no they're here for a little turf!
Waiting...
Here's an adult Great Blue "gopher stabber" now; stalking the infields between our runways, taxiways, and service roads watching, listening, waiting for a gopher to pop up out his hole.








He's got one!

Sorry mate, looks like you picked the wrong time to surface!















Num, num, yum...

Ahhhh!

Friday, March 6, 2015

Wile E. Canis latrans

And what do we have here?












Uh huh, like I can't see you out there...













                                                                               Now the fun part, trying to keep him off the runway.












.... I did say "try" right?
Of course what you do not see is me getting permission to cross the runway and then getting set up with the pyrotechnics. Welcome to the wonderful world of wildlife management on an airport!
My tactic for dealing with coyotes has evolved since my first encounters. Back then there was this huge adrenaline filled rush to get that coyote off the runway, which often resulted in chasing the darn thing all over the airport which in turn sent it across the runway(s) multiple times. This was no good. So then I started to apply some logic to the problem. Coyotes are members of the family Canidae and one of the traits of that family is exceptional hearing. We use pyrotechnic abatement rounds fired from what is for intense purposes -- a starter pistol and those rounds make either a loud "bang" or a loud "whistle" that ends with a lesser "bang" to scare birds. My tactic is actually quite simple, I turn the coyote's acute hearing against it and drive it away from the runway I am protecting. This one I stumbled upon a little late in the game, as he was already practically on the runway before I could get in position, but in the end I was successful.

Just passerine the time

The day before, on Tuesday, I pulled a Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) from our starling trap. I got a few snapshots and then released him -- love hearing their songs almost as much as I do that of the Western Meadowlark.







And then on the way in I saw more Western Bluebirds (Sialia mexicana).

                                                                                                                       

The swift capture of "D.B." Cooper's Hawk

We caught a juvenile Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) on Wednesday, so I took the opportunity to get a few close ups. They're beautiful lil' hawks with plenty of attitude!
And no, they are not named after the 1971 hijacker who parachuted from Boeing 727 en-route from Portland to Seattle with $200,000. The hawk is actually named after William Cooper who was a 19th century American naturalist, conchologist, and collector.



Earlier while I was out I managed to snap a few shots of some resting Vaux's Swifts (Chaetura vauxi). The swifts and the swallows have been seen around the airport for a few weeks now, but as always -- they are hard to photograph!